A day or two away from using my new blog host, WordPress.

(All of these blog posts have already been imported into WordPress)

I'm having a few techy problems.

First I'm having difficulty with a good internet stream using the VZAccess adapter I have which makes it almost impossible to upload photos right now for some reason.

Second, I am real close to having all 3 of my sites: Gottago's Adventure Site, my blog, and Smugmug, all linked on one home Front Webpage. As soon as this happens, maybe in a day or two, I will post the url address. I believe www.lindajeffers.com will be the address you will use to access this new site. Right now www.lindajeffers is in cyberspace not linked to anything. This web domain name (www.lindajeffers.com) is in the process of being transferred from my old web host server to a new web host server - Erik (the gentleman who is building the insides and outsides for the connected new look and works on my sites).

And now on the brighter side of things................
Guess who came for breakfast this morning, a wee bit earlier than yesterday morning, and a lot more visible and he even stayed for a longer visit.

I got such a high from Mr. Bear's visit I could not hold my camera steady, I used the video vertically rather than horizontally, I asked Ray to use my small camera to get shots of the bear but he said, "You're using the small camera!" Oops. I switched from video on the small camera to photo taking, took a photo through the glass door with the flash on. I made a mess. I certainly lost my cool. Needless to say I didn't get any great shots. But you can see that it's a bear.

I tried opening the door to get to get a shot without glass in front of the bear. The bear eating out of the birdfeeder, noticed the second I opened the sliding glass door just a bit. I stopped opening the door, mind you the bear is less than 3 feet away from me, until the bear starting eating the seed again. Each time I quietly slide the door open an inch the bear stopped eating and looked directly at me. He was afraid of me.

Ray, quietly seated 2 feet from me at the door (probably he was standing in front of his seat) must have thought I was crazy. But he didn't say anything. Finally the bear had enough of me trying to capture a good bear photo and split....down the tree, faster than I could have ever imagined he could have gotten down. I ran out on the wet porch with Ray but the bear was walking away and I lost my opportunity to get a good bear photo.

But I have proof there was a bear coming for breakfast. He was a half an hour later than yesterday morning. Now that I know he is making this visit a regular practice I will make sure I have my large and small cameras ready for that one great bear capture.


This is the shot I took through the glass door with my flash on.

Email sent to Alex this morning.

Hey Alex,

Thanks for stopping by my site. You have no idea how much it means to me that you check out and notice all the work I’ve done on getting the photos photoshopped, re-sized and uploaded. Working on Smugmug (cleaning up the organization) and communicating with Erik over details of the new site, has occupied a lot of my time.

I just got out of bed. I was laying in bed, like I do when I first wake, propped up on my elbow, looking out the window at the scenery. (I do this at home too) From the bedroom window I can see much of the porch railing near the tree and the bird feeder where the birds are always fed. This actual bird feeder on the deck outside isn’t visible from the bedroom but much of the railing, porch and pine tree is.

So I’m staring out the window, through morning unfocused, tear crude filled eyes, when I see a blur of movement that is large and obviously not birds. I lift myself up a little higher on my elbow and blink trying to clear my eyes. The thing I’m trying to focus on is brown. It’s moving away out of my vision, moving down and behind the massive pine tree, out of site. I can’t see the brown anymore. I yell to Ray, who is in the main room in the cabin, “BEAR, BEAR, BEAR”!!!! I jump up out of bed and run into the room where Ray is seated 8 feet away from the bird feeder just outside the floor to ceiling window. “Did you see the bear?”

I no longer can see anything climbing down the porch railing or the pine tree. It’s raining outside. There is sap that has dropped from the pine tree all over the wood slat porch flooring (I hate getting sticky sap on the bottom of my feet or soxs), but I don’t care. I pick up my camera and charge out the sliding glass door into the rain….in my pjs. Photo op. Where is the bear. I do not have my glasses on. I’m moving too fast; I’m way too excited. I can’t see the controls on my small camera. I’m frustrated. I spot the bear down the hillside maybe 20 feet away, his back to me (I think – no glasses) and he’s moving away.

Oh no, I hope I’m on a good enough camera setting to get a shot of the bear. Oh well, I shoot away hoping the dial is set to something that will capture the bear. After one shot, the bear starts walking faster, seemingly aware of my presence I think, away down towards lake’s edge. For a moment I think about getting a video of the bear, but I can’t see the dial settings and now the bear is too far out of sight. What a rush. I walk back through the sliding door ,into the warm living area, and Ray and I excitedly share our “Did you sees……?”

My glasses are on, I’ve taken my once a month Boniva pill to promote good bone density, and I am seated looking at the email I received from last night. I’m hyped up, have the coffee Ray made me, but can’t drink it because I’m not supposed to drink or eat anything for an hour after I take the Boniva pill. What am I supposed to do with all this adrenaline? Write my morning down in this email to you Alex, that’s what I’ll do with the adrenaline rush.

We had been told when we arrived and checked in here at Wood’s Lodge that the bear has visited our cabin and climbed up on our porch over 28 times. We’ve been waiting and hoping to catch a “safe” glimpse of the bear and now we have. We love it.

Hey bear. Hey bear.

Thanks for listening to the reporting of a great start to our day.

Love,

Linda

Here is the bear. The photos were really dark, almost black, so I had to photoshop them a lot.

Never left this position all day!

Today was overcast. Ray was sore from yesterday's hike. I had domain website stuff going on. And the tone was set.

What a glorious day I had after I got email back once the my domain site decided to allow connections again after shutting down for a few hours. It's time for updating my sites. Erik in the UK is working on transferring my stuff from my present web host. We have been in contact daily. He has been working on some really cool Front Pages for my new blog site on WordPress and my photo portfolio on Smugmug. Gottago's Adventure site will keep it's same look and hopefully will stop causing Erik so much trouble moving it to his domain for web hosting. Hopefully soon these 3 sites will be accessed and linked on one URL - www.lindajeffers.com.

I played lots and lots of Word Twist on Facebook. I am totally hooked. Damn Cindy. She topped my high score today by 2 points.

I watched many Adobe Lightroom tutorials online. I'm becoming so much more familiar with this software. Knowing how to use it has saved me lots of time. Time I'll have no trouble quickly filling.

Back to the rest of my evening. Ray is in bed and I figure I have another 45 minutes before I join him.

Insistent little buggers.

Each day this guys get more and more insistent about wanting their food when they want it. Well actually, I get that. It's just that if we don't slide the screen door shut completely they have learned how to use their little hands to slide open the screen door. I guess it doesn't help that I leave the bag of bird seed, within their vision, next to the screen door. Soon I will post a video of their "It's time to eat" behavior.



Ray and I hiked up the Mammoth Crest trail today. I've posted photos on http://gottago.smugmug.com. I was putting captions under the photos when the Smugmug site went down for their routine weekly maintenance. The site will be up after midnight tonight.

Here is a silly photo of Ray at the top of our hike today. The lighting on the photo didn't turn out so I put a solarizing filter on Ray's photo because I like his expression. He probably won't be happy with me.

Photos of today's hour hike around Lake Mamie may be viewed.....

I've posted the photos of today's hike shots taken with my little Canon Powershot A 650 over on Smugmug.

And, here are a few more photos of early morning shots just after I put out the first feeding of bird seed.

I forgot to post this:

9:16 am Tuesday, August 18th.
Ray just said while sitting in his lounge chair drinking his morning coffee, before his breakfast has been served, and after putting down the book he is reading: “I was just sitting here thinking, I don’t have any resentments against you. Isn’t that marvelous?”
I liked hearing that. This is a miracle. Ray just said that the only resentment he has is getting old. I understand and agree.

My kinda day.

I got up early and caught the morning color on Crystal Crag after I put out the first serving of bird seed. The local market is selling a new kind of mixed seed and it is a big hit with the birds, chipmunks and ground squirrels.
So far the only birds we’ve seen are: juncos, stellar jays and a few black birds. One of the black birds has a gimp leg and basically flops in the center of the bowl bird feeder while eating. Each year Ray and I always look for the bully birds. Well I don’t know if this black bird is a bully, but he sure has a way of non verbally communicating with the very loud stellar jays that keeps the jays at a distance until the black bird decides to give up his bowl.

It’s usually the second day we are in Mammoth that Fatso shows up. Fatso fills his jowels with food, runs down the tree, must bury the food, as he comes right back up for more food. All the chipmunks and ground squirrels that feed from the flat plate on the floor of the porch, not so patiently wait their turn at the feeding plate when Fatso is feeding.
Ok, it’s 10:09pm and I am still in my pj’s. Ray is still sore from packing up his Tahoe and then unpacking it in again in Mammoth. Believe it or not, we bought and carried 21 of the quart sized yogurts up here and Ray had them all in an igloo, covered with ice. That makes for a very heavy carry. Here are a few of our reasons for staying inside the cabin all day:

1. We are not yet acclimated to the 9600 feet elevation here at Wood’s Lodge and get dizzy washing dishes. It usually takes until the 3rd day when we start to feel ok with the altitude. I woke up with a pounding headache from being in the altitude and somewhat dehydrated.
2. I wanted to get my “Food” photo assignment completed that’s due Tuesday.
3. I’m addicted to Word Twist on FB.
4. I can’t stop photographing the birds and squirrels.
5. I am so enjoying not having an agenda.
6. Ray’s hips are really bothering him. He’s so worried he’ll need another hip surgery.
7. Ray wants to get into the first of many books he brought up here.
8. And, because we can.

Tuesdays are 2 for One days at the Snow Creek golf course and every day from 12 to 3pm is half price.
Tomorrow I’d like to hike around a bit, take some morning lakeside photos and evening lake photos by lake at Wildyrie Lodge. Except for a newspaper and the mustard I forgot to bring, I see no reason to go into town.